> How can believers sincerely pray, knowing the path of the future is already known and set out by God...

But it's not. This takes us back to the free will / omnipotence debate, I suppose, and we've recently covered that one and don't really see the need to retread now. But the idea is that although God may *know* what's going to happen, it doesn't mean he set it out to be that way. Furthermore, if he knows the outcome of what you're praying about, he *also* knows whether or not you're going to pray about it in the first place. None of this precludes God acting as the direct result of prayer.

But God is a person, not a machine. Sometimes God doesn't answer prayers. Sometimes God makes things happen that aren't prayed for. It's not unlike your own actions: sometimes you do things because people ask you to, sometimes you refuse the requests of others, and sometimes you do things without being asked.

The central purpose of prayer is to nuture a personal relationship with God, which is not only pleasing to God but essential for personal spiritual health. As with any relationship, the communication that sustains it goes far beyond making requests. As is required to maintain a personal relationship between two human beings, there is, or should be, all kinds of different types of communication going on.